Absentia
by ameliagianna
Summary: Shortly after the Bridge appears, Olivia starts to develop memories that don't belong. And a man named Peter emerges from Reiden Lake with almost no memories at all.
1. Amnesia

_**A/N: Reposted with minor changes 01/01/13**_

"_I have to go back! I have to go back to the world at the bottom of the lake!"_

_Olivia walks out of the bathroom in only a bra and underwear. Her hair falls loose over one shoulder, and she has a toothbrush in one hand._

_He sits on the bed, pulling on a pair of socks. He looks up, "Wow."_

"_What?" she asks, bringing the toothbrush to her mouth._

"_You," he tells her, grinning like a fool. "How did I get so lucky?"_

"_Oh. Well, it started when I picked up your sorry ass in Baghdad…" she says, slinking towards his position on the bed._

_His hands abandon his shoes and grab her hips, pulling her towards him so he can place kisses across the expanse of her flat stomach._

"_I really like these underwear," he says quietly next to her navel._

"_Really?" she laughs, a sultry smile tugging at her lips. "I've never worn them before. Guess I'll have to wear them more often."_

_His kisses start to trail lower and her free hand tangles in his messy hair. Just before he reaches the waistband of her panties, she takes a rough grip on his hair and yanks his head away to face her._

"_Later, we have to go." She adds a smile, and something in her eyes tells him she's serious about the 'later'._

"_Do we have to?" he asks, his voice extremely whiny, his arms circling her waist and holding tight like a child. The heel of his chin digs in and rests against her hipbone, and his lower lip juts out in a pout._

"_Yes, we have to!" she says, laughing. "Look at it this way: if we show up late, Walter will just get that creepy look like he knows why."_

_He adopts a look of disgust. "Yeah, he's a little too perceptive."_

"_I think he's just happy for us." Olivia attempts to break from his hold, but he traps her again._

"_We could at least make his presumptions true, you know," he whispers quietly, once again placing kisses along her waistline._

"_Using your father for sex? You should be ashamed, Peter," she responds in mock judgment._

"_That wasn't a no," he whispers, and pulls her back onto the bed._

Olivia wakes in a jolt, sweat soaking through her shirt.

She'd long dismissed the dreams as just that—dreams. But they'd always felt so _real_. So _familiar_. Like memories.

Almost every single morning, she would wake with a fire churning deep within her, the man eliciting not only a mental but a physical response. And, like every other time, his name is lost on the tip of her tongue.

But this time, she could've sworn she'd tasted toothpaste.

Today was the one-week mark since the bridge had appeared.

That first day after, Olivia had gone into work like every other day, except it felt different.

She struggled to ignore the lingering feeling of something missing from her life. And while it had been there for as long as she could remember, the last week had been unbearable.

It was the memories that worried her. Anything could trigger them: a smell or a taste, a muttered phrase from Walter, anything.

They were hers—that much was clear. But they were from another life.

Things like her step-father beating her, beating her mother, those were real. Rachel, crying on her doorstep with a screaming infant Ella, those were real, too. But some were different; Rachel getting served divorce papers, her step-father still breathing as he was rolled away on the gurney—these things haunted her mind.

It was like her mind was being ripped in half.

And that wasn't all. She had distinct, detailed memories of a man. She didn't know who he was, but she knew how he liked his coffee, how his back muscles rippled under her hands, the way his facial hair tickled her cheeks when they kissed.

The dreams were ongoing and agonizingly realistic, only worsening her mental state.

Even as she stood in the wide, open space of the Bridge room, trading file boxes with her alternate, the memories kept hitting her.

"This isn't going to work," she says, eager to break the silence. She keeps on talking, rambling, really, about trust.

But in her head, she wants to trust her. She remembers the feeling of relief when her alternate had helped her in the other universe.

But it never happened.

Her alternate, as usual, leaves her with a quick remark and a smirk, and she turns with the exchanged boxes to leave.

And as much as she had put it off, Olivia knew she needed to talk to Walter.

_Peter._

For all intents and purposes, he could not remember a single thing from before the lake, except a first name.

Peter.

It's not until they've pulled him out that he remembers something else: _Boston._

It's one of the few incomplete and undecipherable memories he has. But Boston and Peter are the only things he's sure of.

When they pulled him out of the lake, naked and freezing, and called the police, he knew he had to get out. It was an automatic response. He ran through the surrounding woods, barefoot and drowning in a shirt and jeans two sizes too big.

Almost an hour of jogging later, he reaches a smoothly paved road. Cars pass at blazing speeds, the breeze tossing the loose cotton around his torso.

He throws a hand over his head and waves down a little white and blue junker.

It pulls over ten or fifteen feet past him, kicking up dust from the gravel of the shoulder. The passenger side window rolls down and a voice booms out to him.

"Need a lift?"

A head tilts out the open window, scanning him.

Peter nods, and walks towards the car. The door swings open and a body slides out. The man is older, tall and lanky, with pepper-gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He looks over Peter carefully, confused at his oversized clothes and lack of shoes. "Where you headed, son?" he asks.

"_Son," an older, sad voice says._

"_I am not _your_ son," his own voice bites back, vitriolic and pained._

Peter collects his head and steps closer, the gravel uncomfortable beneath his bare feet. "Boston," he says. "I need to get to Boston."

"You're a long way from Boston, my friend," the man says, still studying Peter closely. "You're in upstate New York."

"New York?" he wracks his brain for something, anything, any_where_ safe in New York.

"Yeah," the man answers. "About two miles out from Reiden Lake."

The name hits him like a smack in the face, just more brain fodder with no context, no meaning.

Another image appears in the back of his mind, making his head throb. The Statue of Liberty, bathed in _bronze_.

"Can you get me to Liberty Island?"

The man thinks for several seconds before leaning down and addressing the driver of the vehicle.

Peter briefly considers running back into the woods, but thinks better of it.

When the man turns back, he nods passively. "We can't get you all the way to the city, but we can get you to a bus station. There's one fifty, maybe sixty miles from here. Would that be alright?"

Peter sighs. "Yes. Thank you."

The man opens the back door for him, gesturing for him to get in. Peter hesitates, but steps towards the car.

Inside, he can see the driver is a woman. She's about the same age as the man, probably his wife. She's blonde, and elegant. She turns back to see her new passenger and smiles.

"What's your name, young man?" she asks in a very light southern drawl.

"Peter," he answers with a small smile. "My name is Peter."

"Walter," Olivia calls, walking through the doors of the Harvard lab.

"Olivia!" he calls back, and emerges from his office. He scrambles towards her, arms outstretched for an embrace which she gladly obliges.

"How are things?" she asks, patting his back a final time.

"Horrible," he says, still looking too chipper for her to take him seriously. "Aspirin's gone off to get more licorice."

"Ah," she replies. "Walter, I had a question for you."

"Fire away, my dear," he says, already wandering deeper into the lab.

She runs her hand over her hair self-consciously as she approaches him once again. "I, uh…"

"Don't be shy, Olivia."

She smiles momentarily. "I've been developing these, uh…these memories."

He looks up at her intently.

"And they're mine, I suppose, but I've never experienced them before.

"Hmm…" he says. "How do you know they're yours?"

"Because some of them are similar to my own memories, but _details_ are different. Like, uh, Rachel getting divorce papers while staying with me, or…" she trails off.

"Or?"

"When I shot my step-father, I didn't take the third shot, and he lived." She sighs, rubs the back of her neck.

"Oh, my," Walter whispers, thinking.

"I'm getting confused, Walter. What do I do?" She rests her hands on her hips.

"I don't know."

**A/N: Whoa….Welcome to the sequel to Don't Go! Now, this story doesn't exactly flow as well as Don't Go did, so don't be expecting regular updates. But I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts. So please review. Pretty please. And title credit goes to the Fringe writers (sort of) because the word 'absentia' entered the Fringeverse because of them. I'm just borrowing it. I almost went with Amnesia, but it didn't flow as well (and, as you can probably see, that is now the chapter title). This story will run alongside Season 4 for a little while, but in no way is it going to end up in the same place. I have a plan that will throw a huge monkeywrench in the Season 4 plotline and bring it all back around to the original Don't Go story. Now go review. Please. I really need it.**


	2. Something Unusual

**A/N: I reposted Ch.1 with some minor changes. Rereading is recommended.**

"So, Peter," Shannon starts, "Where are you from, originally?"

"Uh," Peter pauses, "Boston."

"Oh, Boston's a great city. You got family out there?"

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, the belt digging into his neck slightly. "Uh, no, just me," he lies.

Really, he could be from Iraq and have seven brothers for all he knows. But he's not sure how to explain to these people how he magically appeared in a lake with little to no memories of who he was or how he got there.

"What were you doing on the side of the road with no shoes?" Tom asks from the passenger seat.

"Tom," Shannon cautions.

"No, it's fine," Peter says. "I, uh…was with some friends and they thought it would be funny to take all my stuff and leave me there." The lie's weak, but it's all he's got for now.

"Not very considerate friends," Tom says, turning forward.

Peter doesn't answer.

"I don't know," Walter sighs.

Just then, Olivia's cell phone rings.

"Dunham," she answers, half-watching Walter murmur to himself.

"_We were just informed of an event at Reiden Lake. Massive Dynamic picked up an increased electromagnetic reading early this morning_," Broyles says on the other end of the line.

"What? When? How?" Olivia asks.

"_6:02am. We don't know what caused it yet. It could be nothing._"

"Has the Other Side been informed yet?"

"_No, I want you to go and check it out first. There was also a police report filed right around that time that was a little strange._"

"Our kind of strange?" she asks.

"_That's what you're going up there to find out. I'll send over the file before you leave. And take Agent Lee with you._"

Before Olivia can argue that last part, Broyles has hung up. "Great," she whispers.

When she looks back at him, Walter's lost deep in thought.

"Walter, I have to go to New York. Could you…" she trails off.

"Keep thinking of why this may be happening to you? Of course. I've already formed a hypothesis, but it's unlikely." He pauses. "Will there be a body?"

"Broyles didn't say anything about one." She avoids telling him about Reiden Lake.

"Good. More time for me to think. Be careful, dear."

"Of course, Walter," she replies, but he's already stopped listening.

Olivia pulls out her phone and begins to dial Lincoln Lee's number, but moments before she presses the call button he and Astrid—with an armful of Redvines—walk through the lab doors.

He looks up from his conversation with Astrid and sees Olivia.

"I was just about to call you," she says.

"Oh?" he asks, and Astrid goes off to unload.

"We've got something in upstate New York. You up for it?"

"Sure."

When Astrid reenters the room, now only with one pack of licorice, Olivia turns to her.

"Broyles sent over a file, could you print it for me?"

"Yeah," she says, going to her computer.

"I'll go get the car," Lincoln says, and wanders out the way he came.

Olivia walks over to Astrid. "Did Lincoln go with you to the store?

"No," Astrid says with a seemingly straight face, but Olivia detects a hint of color in her cheeks. "We ran into each other in the parking lot."

"Oh," Olivia says, the corner of her mouth twitching upward.

"So, where you headed?" Astrid asks, changing the subject.

Olivia glances at Walter across the lab over her shoulder, before turning to Astrid. "There was an increase in electromagnetic energy at Reiden Lake this morning, and shortly after something strange happened. Broyles didn't say what. He wants me to check it out before he brings it to the Other Side," she says quietly.

"Hmm," she replies. She presses a button on her keyboard and the printer grinds into action. "Does he think They may be doing something we should know about?"

"I don't know," Olivia shrugs. She grabs the stack of papers from the tray just after the printer spits out the last piece. "It could be nothing."

"Well, be careful."

"Don't worry, Lincoln'll be fine," she teases.

Astrid just shakes her head and turns back to the computer as Olivia walks out.

When they arrive at the bus station, Tom donates a jacket and a pair of shoes to Peter. They also hand him a hundred dollar bill and their phone number. "Call us when you get there."

"I will," Peter says. "Thank you so much."

"Don't worry about it. Be careful, now."

Peter nods and the car pulls away. He zips up his new jacket—which fits him better than the other clothes he inherited—and walks through the grimy glass doors and towards a ticket counter.

"Hello, what can I do for you?" the woman behind the only slightly less grimy glass of the booth asks.

She a woman in her forties or fifties, with dark-chocolate skin and her braided hair pulled back into a bun.

Peter smiles, and she grins even bigger at him. "When does the next bus to the city leave?"

"Ooh, you headed to the big city? Too bad. This itty-bitty place needs more beautiful men like you." She chuckles and clicks some buttons on her computer. "Next bus to New York City is in…six hours. Sorry, baby. Only three a day, and the last one left ten minutes ago."

"That'll have to do. How much?"

"For you? If I could, I'd give it to you free 'a charge. But I got mouths to feed. Normal fare's forty-nine dollars."

He hands over the hundred and she makes his change. He slides it into the pocket of his jeans.

"Boy, where's all your stuff?"

He smiles. "Long story."

Her eyebrow arches, but she hands him his ticket and says, "Okay, cutie. You don't have to tell me. Go on, then. Bus picks up in Terminal F. You have a nice life."

"You too," he says, and turns away.

"So," Olivia says when she's pulled onto the freeway. "What are we dealing with?"

"This report from Massive Dynamic reports the surge to have happened at 6:02am at Reiden Lake in New York. At 6:15, a man calls 911 to report having pulled a man out of the lake. But get this—the guy was naked."

"Was he drowning?"

"No. The guy who pulled him out, John Carmichael, it was as if he just rose up from the lake. Surfaced twenty feet from where he and his son were fishing."

"So have they got the guy in custody?"

"No again. The guy bolted while Mr. Carmichael was calling the police. He had given him a shirt and jeans, but whoever this guy was, he ran off into the woods barefoot. They canvassed, found foot prints leading to the freeway a few miles out, but then they stopped. They think he hitched a ride."

"Weird," Olivia says.

Peter, now stuck for almost a quarter of a day at the station, found a chair and sat himself down.

He let his head, which was throbbing slightly, fall into his hands. The scratchy 'muzak' over the station's speakers lulled him almost to sleep, but just before his stomach gurgled violently.

He leans back, digs his change out of his pocket and counts it—even though he knows exactly how much the ticketer gave him back.

_Fifty-one dollars_, he thinks. He glances up, scans the station for some sort of food vendor.

He eyes a few vending machines, but they look older than him—how old _is_ he?—and are likely broken or empty.

He finds a small shop with windows filled with books and figures he should try there _before_ the prehistoric vending machines.

Inside, he approaches the counter. Behind it is an older guy, probably older than the vending machines. "Do you sell food?" Peter asks.

"Didn't want to try your luck with the machines?" he jokes, his voice think and gravelly. "I get that. I don't think those things have been restocked since the 90's. There's a case over there with some stuff. I ain't no all-organic, no-meat guy, but it's edible." He gestures at the wall behind Peter.

"Thanks."

Peter approaches the glass fridge, with the left side filled with an assortment of plastic-wrapped sandwiches and the right with shelves of soda and water.

Peter selects a bottle of water and a turkey sandwich, and carries them back to the counter.

"Good choice," the guy says. "I'm partial to chicken salad myself, but you can't go wrong with the classic turkey."

Peter chuckles softly.

Something in his head clicks, and a memory rushes forward.

"_Can I get some of this onion soup? It looks delightful_," the older voice says.

It's the same voice he had heard earlier, but happier.

"Hello?" the guys asks behind the counter, probably not for the first time. "Fella? You gonna pay?"

Peter reaches for the change in his pocket. "Sorry," he says. "You reminded me of someone. How much?"

"I got one of those faces. Five even."

Peter hands over a five and collects his lunch. Tucking them in the large pockets of Tom's jacket, he scans the store again.

"You read all these?" Peter asks.

"Hell, no. I'm not _that_ old. But a good majority of them, sure."

"Any recommendations? I'm stuck here for a while before my bus comes."

"Maybe," the guy says, tilting his glasses. "Where you headed?"

"Uh, New York City. Then Boston."

"What's in Boston?" he asks.

Peter smiles. "That's what I'm going to find out."

"Isn't that the way?" the guy laughs. He reaches under the counter and pulls out a book.

"This is the one for you, kid. This guy writes some weird stuff, though, I gotta warn you."

"I can handle weird," Peter says, with an unusual amount of confidence.

Peter reaches into his pocket for more money, but the guy holds up his other hand.

"Keep it," is all he says.

Peter nods, but drops a five in the almost barren tip jar on the counter.

"You kids and your damned stubbornness. Good luck."

Peter nods, looking down at the book as he walks out of the shop and back into the main area of the station.

**A/N: Happy New Year! 2013, whoop whoop! **

**So, Tom and Shannon were modeled after a former English teacher of mine and his wife. I don't know why I put them in here, but I think it works. There's a lot of Peter going on in this chapter, but I hope that I can find a happy balance in the next few chapters. Lincoln is back, ladies and gentleman, and he in (for the most part) for the long run. Look forward to more of our alternate universe friends after a few more chapters and some more weird stuff in the next two or so. These first three or four chapters (I'm currently writing numero 4) have been really hard on me, but I'm hoping the plot holes will smooth out by, say, the fifth or sixth chapter. And about the book, I unfortunately never decided between Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) and Survivor (Chuck Palahniuk) so I'm leaving it up in the air. Reviews for the New Year?**


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